Holocaust Memorial Sites

There are numerous sites in Slovakia associated with the Holocaust and the Slovak Jewish Heritage Center has been gradually processing them into this online database of Jewish heritage sites.

Although not directly connected with the Jewish culture, but tragically rather with destruction of a once flourishing Jewish communities in Slovakia, we have been recording these sites, because they should not be forgotten. Sometimes, the memorial plaques have been mounted in lesser known places frequented only by the locals and our database will provides the data to learn about these sites of local memory.

Before 1989, the public memorials were either initiated by the government or the Communist party and the Holocaust victims were memorialized as “anti-Fascists” or under more general terms. Another group of memorials from this period were initiated by the Jewish communities as part of the Jewish communal remembrance and these memorials can be found within Jewish premises, mostly cemeteries or synagogues.

After 1989, a new trend prevailed; the State as well as the municipalities erected monuments to the Holocaust victims in public domains and these form today an inseparable element of the urban spaces.

We document two categories of sites:

The sites, where important events connected to the Holocaust took place, and should not be forgotten as places of Holocaust memory.

The sites, where Holocaust events have been publicly commemorated by memorials and memorial plaques.